Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the third United Apollo program States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. First conceived during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-man Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo. Kennedy's goal was accomplished on theApollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins Country United States remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), and all Organization NASA three landed safely on Earth on July 24. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six Purpose Manned lunar landing spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon. Status completed Program history Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first manned flight in 1968. It [1] achieved its goal of manned lunar landing, despite the major setback of a Cost $25.4 billion (1973) [2] 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. ($112 billion 2018) After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow- Duration 1960–1972 on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical First flight AS-201, February 26, 1966 exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the First crewed Apollo 7, October 11–22, remaining six missions achieved successful landings, but the Apollo 13 flight 1968 landing was prevented by an oxygen tank explosion in transit to the Moon, which destroyed the service module's capability to provide electrical power, Last flight Apollo 17, December 7–19, crippling the CSM's propulsion and life support systems. The crew returned 1972 to Earth safely by using the lunar module as a "lifeboat" for these functions. Successes 16 Apollo used Saturn family rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used Failures 2: Apollo 1, Apollo 13 for an Apollo Applications Program, which consisted of Skylab, a space Partial 1: Apollo 6 station that supported three manned missions in 1973–74, and the Apollo– failures Soyuz Test Project, a joint US-Soviet Union Earth-orbit mission in 1975. Launch Cape Kennedy Air Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in site(s) Force Station LC-34 sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit. Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 Cape Kennedy Air mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission Force Station LC-37 beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar Kennedy Space Center rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the LC-39 Moon's composition and geological history. The program laid the foundation Vehicle information for NASA's subsequent human spaceflight capability and funded Vehicle type Capsule/Lander construction of its Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center. Apollo Crew vehicle also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry Apollo command and and manned spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and service module computers. Apollo Lunar Module Crew 3 capacity Contents Launch Saturn IB vehicle(s) Background Saturn V Origin and spacecraft feasibility studies Political pressure builds NASA expansion Manned Spacecraft Center Launch Operations Center Organization Choosing a mission mode Spacecraft Command and service module Apollo Lunar Module Launch vehicles Little Joe II Saturn I Saturn IB Buzz Aldrin (pictured) walked on the Saturn V Moon with Neil Armstrong, on Apollo 11, July 20–21, 1969 Astronauts Lunar mission profile Profile variations Development history Unmanned flight tests Preparation for manned flight Program delays Apollo 1 fire Unmanned Saturn V and LM tests Manned development missions Production lunar landings Mission cutbacks Extended missions Mission summary Earthrise, an iconic image from the Samples returned 1968 Apollo 8 mission, taken by Costs astronaut William Anders Apollo Applications Program Recent observations Legacy Science and engineering Cultural impact Apollo 11 broadcast data restoration project Depictions on film Documentaries Docudramas See also Notes References Further reading External links Background Origin and spacecraft feasibility studies The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, as a follow-up to Project Mercury. While the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three astronauts. Possible missions included ferrying crews to aspace station, circumlunar flights, and eventual manned lunar landings. The program was named after Apollo, the Greek god of light, music, and the sun, by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that "I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby."[3] Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, because he felt "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program."[4] In July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with a mission module cabin separate from the command module (piloting and reentry cabin), and a propulsion and equipment module. On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, three study contracts were awarded to General Dynamics/Convair, General Electric, and the Glenn L. Martin Company. Meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led byMaxime Faget, to serve as a gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs.[5] Political pressure builds In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Up to the election of 1960, Kennedy had been speaking out against the "missile gap" that he and many other senators felt had developed between the Soviet Union and United States due to the inaction of President Eisenhower.[6] Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of national prestige, pledging to make the US not "first but, first and, first if, but first period."[7] Despite Kennedy's rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president. He knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned Moon landing.[8] When Kennedy's newly appointed NASA Administrator James E. Webb requested a 30 percent budget increase for his agency, Kennedy supported an acceleration of NASA's large booster program but deferred a decision on the broader issue.[9] On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. At a meeting of the US House Committee on Science and Astronautics one day after Gagarin's flight, many congressmen pledged their support for a crash program aimed at ensuring that America would catch up.[10] Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make a commitment on America's response to the Soviets.[11] On April 20, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up.[12][13] Johnson responded approximately one week later, concluding that "we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving results necessary if this country is to reach a position of leadership."[14][15] His memo concluded that a manned Moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first.[14] On May 25, 1961, twenty days after the first US manned spaceflight Freedom 7, Kennedy proposed the manned Moon landing in a Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs: Now it is time to take longer strides - time for a great new American enterprise - time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. ...I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the President Kennedy delivers his long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or proposal to put a man on the Moon expensive to accomplish.[16] Full text before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961 NASA expansion At the time of Kennedy's proposal, only one American had flown in space—less than a month earlier—and NASA had not yet sent an astronaut into orbit. Even some NASA employees doubted whether Kennedy's ambitious goal could be met.[17] By 1963, Kennedy even came close to agreeing to a joint US-USSR Moon mission, to eliminate duplication of fort.ef [18] With the clear goal of a manned landing replacing the more nebulous goals of space stations and circumlunar flights, NASA decided that, in order to make progress quickly, it would discard the feasibility study designs of Convair, GE, and Martin, and proceed with Faget's command and service module design.